


Quitting, but not Giving Up

by 4vrAFangirl



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 00:17:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7197401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4vrAFangirl/pseuds/4vrAFangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I didn’t- Love you- not in the same way that you have loved me. But I would not have proposed leaving America to marry you if I didn’t believe it might be possible that one day I could.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quitting, but not Giving Up

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read as a kind of companion piece to my other fics [Captivated](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6799075), and [Trust](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7158176) but is a stand-alone fic.
> 
> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? I write for all manner of fandoms and ships! Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [4vraFangirl](http://www.4vrafangirl.tumblr.com)

“I didn’t,” Anna finally manages to say, the words expelled quickly on an almost desperate gasp as she watches the Major begin to rise from their table to leave. He pauses, but only just, though the answer doesn’t seem to surprise him after her earlier inability to voice the words aloud, and his own surmised conclusion. “Love you- not in the same way that you have loved me,” Anna clarifies heaving a deep breath and searching for the strength to continue, because she’s come this far, he deserves to hear all of it. “But I would not have proposed leaving America to marry you if I didn’t believe it might be possible that one day I could.” He looks a little pained at this; then shakes his head and takes his leave, clearly still resolved to quit her.

She should let him go. He isn’t wrong to have suggested that she was sent here, and telling him the truth of her role and reasons behind what she has done is already ignoring and deviating from her orders and the interest of the Ring. She is still a Rebel, even if his red coat is just a formality. But something in her gut clenches watching him making his way towards the back of the tavern, up the stairs, no doubt to his room until he is able to secure his passage back to England. She still believes in the ideals that her father and countless Rebel soldiers have died for, but has never enjoyed the only way it is possible for her as a woman to make a meaningful contribution is through secrets and lies, and has enjoyed hurting Edmund least of all. The very thought of how she has injured him in the hopes of saving him, injures her too.

“Wait, please,” she begs, catching him off guard for a moment when she catches up to him putting a key to his door, before he frowns.

“I have said all that I have to say,” he sniffs, attempting to return his attention to the task of unlocking his room.

“But I haven’t,” Anna insists. “Edmund, I-“

“Major Hewlett, or simply Hewlett, _Mrs. Strong_ ,” Hewlett interrupts firmly, though he’s shifting his weight over to favor his unblemished foot in a way she’s noticed since his imprisonment has become a kind of a nervous tell, and has taken his hand away from the door. “And I believe I have made myself and allowed you to play me for a fool enough already. There can be nothing more to discuss. You never did-“

“I loved you enough to think the world would be a darker and lesser place without you,” Anna interrupts him, shaking her head. “Enough to give up everything else I knew or cared about to keep you safe,” she continues, with a kind of rueful smile. How different might things have been if they had simply stuck with the plan of running away together. If he hadn’t been so determined to stay, to silence all those in Setauket that questioned her worth and deserving him. Perhaps she doesn’t deserve him. Perhaps she never truly did. Perhaps the idea of running away and starting over together was never anything more than a foolish dream, but she has to acknowledge at the very least, he had not been the only one to dream of it.

“Having the opportunity to come to know you was a privilege. And I- I would have been _honored_ to be your wife, Edmund. Perhaps my affections were not quite the same level of passion as yours, but I would never have accepted your proposal if I didn’t believe that they could grow into that, and if I wasn’t convinced that you could make me happy. Because you already did. In every moment we spent together. I’ve never regretted anything more than the thought of how I may have destroyed your hopes and happiness,” Anna confesses tearfully, and Edmund visibly sags as if the weight of her words has fallen directly upon his shoulders. He doesn’t bother this time to correct her more familiar use of his Christian name. It’s possible with everything else she’s said to consider, he hasn’t truly noticed it yet.

“I don’t understand what you want from me, Mrs. Strong,” he admits, looking somehow younger for how impossibly lost and sad his expression is, finally unlocking the door and opening it, seeming to pause for a moment, before deciding, walking in, but leaving it open for her to follow against his earlier sentiments that she could tell him whatever she came to say in the public forum of the tavern downstairs, and perhaps his better judgment.

“I would have waited for you,” he says, walking over and staring unseeing out of his window into the dark night beyond it, remembering that terrible night at Whitehall. “For your feelings to- develop into something more like mine. For you to obtain a proper divorce. Did I ever give you cause to feel I wouldn’t? What you said at ou- at the wedding, was there some truth to it,” he asks, though he's not entirely sure he can bear it if the answer is positive. He barrels on before she can respond instead. “If you had told me it was Abraham you were protecting me from-“ he continues, turning away from the window and beginning to pace as she gently closes the door behind her, watching, waiting, trying to determine whether she should, or where she might take a seat. “Did you have so little faith in my abilities to keep myself, and the two of us safe?”

“If you could only have saved one of us,” he interrupts before she can give him an answer. “Who would you have chosen?”

“I made my choice.”

“If there hadn’t been that third option,” Hewlett insists, shaking his head.

“Yes, and I told you that Abe was planning to kill you. You allowed him to live, planned to let him leave Setauket unscathed because of your alliance to get rid of Simcoe together, and I’ve just told you he intended to break it. You could pass that information to Wakefield now and have a place made up for him at the gallows by week’s end,” Anna points out. “I have _made_ my choice.”

“Could you ever forgive me,” he asks quieter still, curious and a little nervous if the way he seems to be holding his breath is any indication.

“Yes,” she admits, surprising even herself a little with the conviction behind it. Edmund too looks surprised, eyes wide as he studies her face, reading the sincerity there. “You gave Abraham every opportunity. It is no failing of yours if he chose to squander it. I cannot fault you for defending your life, not when everything that I have done since learning his intentions has been to protect it.”

“I don’t wish either of you dead,” she continues, though that much has already been made clear. “But I would like to think I could forgive it, that I would understand, if you felt it right and necessary to turn him in.”

“But you are still a spy too.” She nods. “You are still loyal to your country.”

“Yes, but for myself, and my own reasons, not Abe’s. Not anymore.”

“I could give _your_ name to Wakefield. Or to any of the officers downstairs. I could deliver you to the doorstep of Major André, myself.”

“Yes, you could,” Anna acknowledges.

“But you know that I won’t,” he frowns again. “You must think me weak.”

“No. I have not thought of you that way in a very long time; not since I have had the opportunity of knowing you. I think that you are human. That you have made mistakes, but that you are a good man, who thinks and acts according to what you believe in your heart to be right.”

“You said you did not wish for Abraham or I to die,” Hewlett begins again cautiously. “What is it that you wish for?”

“I wish this war were over,” Anna admits quite before she’s realizing she’s saying it, and without having to give it much thought.

“That it had never happened,” Edmund supplies, but Anna shakes her head.

“Even apart as we now are, I am a better person for having known you, Edmund, though I doubt you share any similar thoughts or feelings now about me.”

“ _You must know_ -“ he exhales, staring back at her, shaking his head.”You must- that I should not have even entertained seeing you this evening if some traitorous part of me didn’t love you still,” his eyes burn, shine-even in the dimmer candlelight of his room compared to that of the tavern where they’d first begun this conversation- with unshed tears. “You truly believe that you could come to- to fall in love with me as I have with you?”

Anna nods. It’s possible she thinks, that she may already have some of those more romantic and passionate feelings towards Edmund, but has never had the time or the courage to examine them because of what was being asked of her for the Ring, because of what she was aware she needed to do. Breaking Edmund’s heart and spirit might have been near impossible, even to save his life, if she were to admit that she may be in love with him.

“Come with me,” he blurts out with a kind of awkwardness she’s not seen as much of since the earlier days of their acquaintance and friendship with one another, an endearing hopefulness even in uncertainty, a kind of innocence she’s always admired and cared for in him, and that she’s missed. “Back to England, then home to Scotland,” he clarifies. “Come with me, and the war can be over for the two of us at least,” he continues. “We can run away like you suggested- the way we should have done. We can leave all of this,” he gestures vaguely about the room and air between them. “-on this side of the ocean.”

“What about ‘quitting me’?”

“We have both suffered and sacrificed enough, I think, to quit this war instead of each other. Haven’t we?”

“Yes,” Anna exhales in relief, fat tears spilling over and falling down her cheeks. “Yes we have,” she nods relieved, closing the gap between them and wrapping her arms around him. He stumbles for a moment, before unpinning his arms from her embrace, so that he can reciprocate this simple gesture of warmth he’d all but feared lost to him forever.

“I-“ he hesitates some while later as the hug stretches on, reluctant to break the silence and this moment between them, but suddenly struck by an uncomfortable thought. “I wrote my mother that we were engaged,” he admits, pulling back a little from Anna to meet her eyes. “I haven’t had the opportunity or inclination to write again and acquaint her with everything else that has happened since.”

Her earlier words, _I will not let my shame to become yours_ , come back to her now. “You don’t need my permission to tell your mother the truth,” Anna points out. “But I would be happy to meet and be introduced to her as your intended.”

“I do not wish for you to marry me if your feelings are nothing more than a mutual respect and platonic sort of affection.”

“Then perhaps this time we shall have a little longer courtship and engagement,” she offers patiently, with a small smile.

“I- I would like that,” Edmund admits, a small blush creeping up his collar beneath his cravat.

“So would I,” Anna smiles softly. “I suppose, I should go see someone about accommodations here then.”

“Yes, I- I suppose so,” he nods, seeming to still be processing their conversation, going over it to be certain he isn’t imagining or dreaming the whole thing somehow.

“Goodnight then, Major Hewlett,” she offers softly with a nod.

“Edmund,” he corrects, just as softly.

“Goodnight Edmund.”

“Goodnight- Anna,” he returns with a small smile of his own as he watches her go.


End file.
